Another bad day for buzzards

On 11 February, a gamekeeper in Cumbria went into a cage trap he had set and clubbed two buzzards to death with a stick that he kept for that purpose.  He was caught on film by an RSPB camera after we were alerted to the presence of the birds by members of the public.  On Monday, he pleaded guilty to killing these two birds and five others he had summarily despatched prior to this incident.  He was given a 70 day jail sentence, suspended for a year.  You can see our press release here.  

To see the video evidence, click here. But I should warn you that you may not enjoy what you see.  The admission of previous killing shows that 11 February incident was sadly not a one off.

Looking past the details of this individual case, I think it throws up some broader questions.  Setting cage traps to catch crows is legal under a ‘general licence’ that is issued by government.  Anyone using one should release any fully protected species such as buzzards that are caught by ‘accident’.  But how often does this happen?  In all of the cases of buzzards in cage traps investigated by us over several years, the law has not been complied with.  Either the birds have been killed, or the trap has not been checked within 24 hours.  Several gamekeepers have been convicted or cautioned.  I expect that many cage traps are being used according to the law but our evidence does show that in too many cases they are not. Why, in this case, was a cage trap set at all at this time of year, it couldn’t have been targeting territorial crows? 

We believe it is high time that the Government reconsiders the general licence for cage traps, at the very least their use needs to be tightened up to stop (or at least limit) the by-catch of birds of prey.  We said so in our response to the Law Commission review into wildlife management law and we await the Government’s response to this review.

What do you think? I would be interested to hear your views.